THE PONIES COME OUT OF THE GATES WITH STRONG WEEK 1 OF COMPETITION
Dateline: Coach Onken’s Kitchen Table 12/8/2024 8:19AM
Welcome back to the mat for the 24-25 Ponies Wrestling Season. After a couple of weeks of practice the Ponies got their season under way with a couple of SEC (Suburban East Conference) duals in Forest Lake, taking on the Rangers and the Raptors of East Ridge. The Ponies quickly dispatched of East Ridge with a 74-0 win. The Ponies varsity lineup is quite young this year with only 4 seniors in the lineup and a lot of wrestlers rotating in certain weight classes. Brodie Lawrence saw his first varsity action against the Raptors collecting a win by forfeit and it was all downhill from there with the Ponies scoring 8 falls in their victory.
In the final of the evening Forest Lake hoped to give the Ponies more of a challenge but in the end, Stillwater finished with a 48-21 victory and a 2-0 beginning to the season. Chase Lawrence saw his first action on the varsity mat with a convincing 19-4 tech fall. The Rangers took the 2nd match by fall but the Ponies came right back with a major decision from Joe Dauffenbach and never looked back. Noah Nicholson, Cade Elzen, Cael Spates and Andrew Olson all scored falls to top off the night.
On the JV side there are also many new faces including Grady Newman, Caleb Line, Evan Milby, Kamel Benyahia, Jordan Gunderson, Erik Skjervold, Caleb Vang, Tyler Johnston and Owen Stow. Much like the Varsity, the JV handled both East Ridge and Forest Lake with ease. In the East Ridge dual the Ponies won 35-28 with falls by Kingston Pak, Evan Milby, Evan Heuer, Kamel Benyahia and Jordan Gunderson. There were a few more matches in the Forest Lake dual with the Ponies JV coming out ahead 66-44 overall. Falls came from Elijah Hunter, August Hartung, Ryan Birkenmayer, Jay Hammersten, Kingston Pak, Andrew Karas, Eli Nye, Ryan Gregory, Jordan Gunderson and Evan Heuer. A great night for the Ponies overall and a great start to the season.
On Saturday the Ponies Varsity and JV headed to Woodbury for a dual tournament with Woodbury, Farmington, Two Rivers, Anoka, Eagan, Owatonna and Simley. The Ponies were seeded 2nd and took on Two Rivers in the first round. Brodie Lawrence started the dual with a fall while Andrew Olson ended it with a forfeit for a 72-0 finish. The JV also saw success against the Two Rivers squad with a 47-30 victory.
In round 2 the Ponies took on the Tornados of Anoka for a chance to get into the finals. Anoka is a bit improved from last season, but they were no match for the Ponies who won the dual 55-10. Cade Elzen, Mikey Jelinek, Cohen Lumby and Andrew Olson all finished with falls in the dual. The JV had just a handful of matches falling 16-21 in 7 matches. Brodie Lawrence, Elijah Hunter and Kingston Pak all brought home victories for the Ponies.
This set up a final between the Ponies and Simley. Last year the Ponies took one on the chin with a 45-13 loss to Simley, but this year would be different. The Spartans got on the board first with a major decision and a fall to take a 10-0 lead, but Joe Dauffenbach battled for a decision to get the Ponies on the board. Cade Elzen followed with another decision making the score 10-6 Spartans. Noah Nicholson gave the Ponies a 12-10 lead with a fall but the Spartans came back with a fall of their own to take the lead 16-12. Grayson Eggum and Ian Leonard both won close decisions to give the Ponies an 18-16 lead when the Spartans scored a fall at 160 to take it back at 22-18. However that would be the last points the Spartans would score; the Ponies received decision wins from Isaac Hunter, Lindson Turner and Cael Spates along with a fall from Andrew Olson to win the dual 33-22. The Ponies took the crown at the Woodbury Duals knocking off 2 ranked teams as they did it. The Ponies varsity starts the season 5-0 and are looking really strong out of the gate.
The JV also notched another dual victory winning 52-26 over the Spartan JV taking their record to 4-1 unofficially. They may get another crack at Anoka in the JV tournament coming up in a couple of weeks.
On a side note you might notice some changes this year, mainly scoring. High School Wrestling has adopted college scoring, so takedowns will now be worth 3 points, near fall will be scored at 2, 3, 4 and 5. Wrestlers will receive an extra point if action is stopped in a near fall situation, hence the near fall 5. They did not adopt riding time bonus points, but we will definitely see more major decisions as well as technical falls this season. Another rule to note is wrestling on the edge of the mat where there only needs to be one point of contact within the circle for wrestling to continue. Therefore, even if a toe is touching wrestlers can continue to score on the edge. Lastly, there will be a focus on the angle of 45% for the wrestler in control to score near fall points. Obviously, this will vary by referee depending on how they did in Geometry class. Of course, we are all armchair referees when watching a match.
Until next time!